Operation Tally-Ho has hit the road so I figured it’s time for a blog update.

This post might be somewhat lengthy as I feel there’s lots to share. So without further ado, here are the events/highlights/journal log for the last few days.

As best we could, we tied up our loose ends in San Diego, packed up Dolly, and hit the road this past Friday Jan 14th headed for… Mmm hmmm, you know it… Vegas baby Vegas. Aw yeah.

Although we have no set itinerary for our travels we have had this first stop planned for a while as it’s the site of my soccer team’s annual tournament. In respect for my teammates and the Nomads name I will make no further mentions of the tournament, our results, or any reference to our play. Let’s just say the highlights of the trip for our team were left in the bars and on the felts, not on the field. I’ve played soccer with these guys for the past ohhhhh 13+ years or so and it’s going to be a bit weird not lacing up the boots each Sunday with them. Hopefully I’ll be back on the field with them one day but for now… on to new adventures.

Back  to departure day. Our friend Greg decided to hitch a ride with us to Sin City and in doing so cemented himself the honored position as our very first road companion ever. Thanks for sharing the journey with us and also test piloting the Captain’s Chair as passenger seat. Your certificate and badge are in the mail.

Speaking of the drive to Vegas. One of the things I’ve been a little bit leary about other than driving Dolly through ice/snow is wind. I’ve heard that you really don’t want to be driving an RV in heavy winds and have even heard horror stories of rigs being completely blown over. So when I saw the first electronic freeway sign flashing “Heavy Winds” as we were entering Corona, needless to say, I wasn’t doing the happy dance. The first gust hit like a Mike Tyson roundhouse. One second I was kicking butt in our roadtrip wordgame challenge and the next second we’re getting a wind bitch slap and finding ourselves suddenly placed an entire lane over. (Thank goodness there wasn’t a car next to us). After what seemed like an eternity of steering to the right only to be moving left we FINALLY hit calm air after making it to the Cajon Pass. I’m now officially adding a new level to the Beaufort Wind Force Scale.
Force 13:
Description: Crazy Ass Windy
Wind Speed: Like Really Really Fast
Land Conditions: Uncontrollable palm sweating. Severe whitening of knuckles. Widespread damage to RV driver’s undergarments.

So we make it safely to Vegas (technically Henderson) to park at our Friend Elaini’s condo complex where we plan to set up home base for a bit. After playing soccer all day Saturday we head out for the night to meet up with my friend Joyce who lives in Vegas. A few guys on the team are staying at the brand new uber hip and trendy Cosmopolitan hotel so we head over to check that out and hang. Unbeknown to us at this same time Dolly is being tagged with a neon green sticker informing us that RV parking is not allowed at the condos and we’re gonna be towed on Monday if we don’t move. Yay.

Sunday is another full day of soccer games but nighttime takes us back out on the town with Joyce and Greg. Joyce tells us that friends of hers are doing this cool promotion bar night at some place called Brass Lounge in downtown (old) Vegas and we “should totally go”. It’s gonna be so cool because her friend is the DJ and they do lingerie photo shoots (what the?? excuse me but did you just say lingerie photo shoots) and it’s gonna be great blah blah blah (love you Joyce). I swear her lips kept moving but I don’t think I heard much after lingerie photo shoot. So we obviously go, you know, in the name of science and all. We get down there and it’s sorta this weirdish scene cuz the bar is kinda empty, music is blasting, and there’s a mix of tattoo’d bondage types, displaced burners, creeper older dudes who look like they look for bar nights with lingerie photo shoots, a few “normal” people, and drumroll….. chicks dancing around in lingerie. ding ding ding. we’ve got a winner. There are a lot of dudes with cameras (professional looking types) so I think this is a great way for them to get to shoot different people etc etc and they also had their work displayed all over the bar (some interesting and cool photos to be sure). I digress.

So about 20 minutes after our arrival I look over and quiet, shy, reserved, understated, wine buzzed Joyce is telling Bree how “Olive” has all sorts of Lingerie and she should TOTALLY pick something out and do a shoot. Being the lingerie super model veteran that she is Bree calls her bluff and says let’s do it but you’re coming with me. Never in a million years would I expect this outcome but 15 minutes later out of the back here comes Bree and Joyce decked out in their little dainties and next thing you know they’re on a stage on the balcony of Brass Lounge in downtown Vegas with the photogs snapping pics a plenty and people walking the Fremont Street Experience below looking up wondering if their eyes were deceiving them. Nope, they were not, Operation tally ho in da houuuuuuse. Go Buno and Joyce. Classic.

We get back to Dolly late and crash out instantly. My very next immediate memory after falling asleep is the sound of Bree’s voice yelling “TOW TRUCK!” I go from complete dead sleep to launching out of bed scrambling for clothing in .06 seconds. “They’ll never take us alive” I think as I wheel around cloudy headed searching for my shoe. I’m moments away from launching myself into the drivers seat to fire Dolly up and split the scene before the tow truck can get us hitched when I look outside and notice said tow truck actually has a truck on it and it’s dropping it off in the parking lot next to us. After I relay this info to Bree I suddenly remember that I’d taken the dogs out for a walk when we got back the night before and had ran into a security guard and talked with him about our situation and he’d said that he didn’t even know we were there and we could probably just call the property mgmt the next day and get a pass to stay. Oh yeah, I forgot about that cuz see when I’m in full REM and am awoken (is that a word) by panicked wife yelling “TOW TRUCK” I don’t think so good. Anyways, crisis averted. We weren’t the droids he was looking for and we were not hauled away on a tow truck.

After realizing later in the morning that the person that stickered our rig obviously doesn’t even talk to the security guard (were later told it was probably an HOA board member) it occurred to us also that they could just call the tow truck themselves so we decided to leave the property until we could get it sorted and hopefully get a pass so we could stay “legally” for the rest of our stay.

I’d planned on playing a bunch of poker at The Venetian during our Vegas stint and so we headed out and made our way Strip-bound. After a bit of finagling with the security guard at the oversize vehicle lot located in the north forty (sorry kids, that’s old people talk….north forty = BFE…. sorry old people, BFE=Butt F#%$ Egypt) Anyways, the lot is FAR from the casino, you get the idea. See they let oversize vehicles park there and it’s also the staging area for tons of containers and people loading in and out of the massive Sands Convention Center attached to the hotel (The industries largest gun convention just happens to be underway here – SHOT). I digress. Evidently you can only park in that lot if you’re staying at the hotel, which is where the finagling comes in. I successfully employed the “but the guy I talked to said” technique and, well….we have now been living in the oversizes vehicle lot behind the Venetian for the past 3 days. The security guards out there (there are 3 during a 24 hr shift) have all been super cool. They’ve met the dogs, we chat when coming and going…they’re GREAT. I digress.

So we stay our first night without a hitch and the next morning we decide to walk the trek in together. Bree is going to set up her laptop in the Salon (a small side area of the Venetian Poker Room) that has a comfy couch, outlet, etc. and hang for the day while I play in the noon tourney. Bree hems and haws before we leave because she hasn’t eaten breakfast and she’s hungry but wants to walk together so she decides just to come along and get food after getting inside. (cue dissonant music)

We part ways and I’m playing my tourney. I just win a big pot, things are going great, and I get the following text from Bree, “I need you upstairs in the mall area.” at which point I’m thinking “really hun, you do remember i’m playing in a poker tournament”…followed seconds later by another text, “Hurry”. Shit. This is not good. I drop everything and run out of the poker room up the massive flight of stairs leading up past Tao nightclub and into the shops. I must have looked like a crazy guy cuz I’m fumbling with my phone while sprinting through aisle after aisle of shops realizing uhhhhh…this is like a full on mall. I’m scanning everywhere for Bree but it’s totally pointless. There are people everywhere and the place is massive. I call her a few times finally getting her on the line and she’s totally out of it, slurring, obviously not doing well…when she finally can ask someone where she is. It’s a restaurant. I can find it. I run in the back of the noted italian restaurant to find Bree laid out in an alcove with a helpless hostess standing over her and a bag of vomit laying next to her. I’m certified at emergency assessments and immediately code this as “Pretty F’d Up and Not Good“. I then instantly, using my extensive medical knowledge gleaned from too many nights having to sit next to the love of my life enduring, errr, I mean enjoying, way too many episodes of Grey’s Anatomy, I diagnose her with a severe case of Vegasitis (a bit too much drinking the night before, followed by limited water intake, followed by no food equaling a sever case of dehydration and possibly hypoglycoma, hypoglucosamine, hypo….LOW BLOOD SUGAR).

My training has taught me to run to the bartender and ask (frantically beg) for some OJ (BAR WENCH..OJ..STAT) which I run to the victim. As she starts sipping the EMT shows up and takes over (um, yer welcome dude) and I hand over the treatment to him. At this point I actually thought I should probably take a picture of this for the blog but upon further consideration to the state of the patient think better of it and don’t whip out my phone to document the occasion. Bree starts to slowly come around a bit during the exam (I’m pretty sure it was the magic OJ taking effect) and by the end can at least get up and walk out. We get back to the couch and get some food in her and a bunch of liquids and Powerade and when she’s feeling up to it, we make our way over to the back lot and to Dolly where she proceeded to climb into bed and crash out for the next few hours. WHEW! She wakes up feeling a bit battered but not beaten and much much better thank goodness! Oh I forgot to mention, for all that were following closely, when Bree felt stable enough and was eating and drinking I went back to my tournament chips which were still there and proceeded to bust out soon after. Note: I played the same tournament the next day (yesterday) and redeemed myself with a 3rd place finish. YAY.

So yeah, that’s about it from the road for now. Nothing much going on here. Just the usual ho hum everyday sorta stuff. Until next time.

Tall ho…

McDreamy,
Matt

Post photo is a shot of Dolly in the parking lot our first night at Elaini’s condo complex before discovering our neon green sticker of doom.